It is known to employ a pelvis-pusher installed in a door or body side panel immediately outboard of a seat to reduce injury to a seated occupant during a side impact event. Pelvis-pushers have typically taken the form of a relatively stiff, unyielding block installed in the door or side panel to fill what would otherwise be empty “crush space” so as to contact the outboard side of the occupant's pelvis earlier during a side impact event. This contact loads the pelvis and pushes the occupant inwardly or inboard relative to the vehicle as a whole.
To optimize injury protection, the pelvis-pusher should have a stiffness that is compatible with the occupant pelvis. Since protection must be provided for occupants of a wide range of sizes and weights, this has been addressed by assuming the occupant is a 50th percentile adult (based on size/weight). For an occupant of smaller/lighter stature, however, a pelvis-pusher designed for the 50th percentile adult may be too stiff for optimum injury prevention.
To provide optimum protection for a 5th percentile occupant generally requires a softer (less stiff) pelvis-pusher to reduce the likelihood of damaging the pelvis. When such a less-stiff pusher is used, the shock-absorption distance must be increased to achieve sufficient movement of the occupant's lower torso away from the impact zone, with a corresponding decrease in the width available in the seating area.